That barely veiled insinuation stung.
‘Not that long ago I spent three weeks under an intense sun, with very little sleep, cleaning and tagging hundreds of birds after an oil tanker spilled its contents on the other side of the world, Your Highness. I’m sure I’m up to taking notes at a meeting. Unless you’ll be conducting it in something other than one of the five languages I speak fluently?’ That need to prove her worth to him, to ram her few but much prideful accomplishments down his throat, grated for a moment before she owned it.
She’d learned to her cost that timid didn’t work with Zak.
Anything other than toe-to-toe combat was just asking to be eaten alive and spat aside with singeing indifference. He responded to challenges, usually attempted by misguided fools who dared to say no to him. But occasionally it didn’t hurt to remind the man that simply because that word didn’t exist in his vocabulary, it didn’t mean she intended to gushingly enquire how high when he said jump.
‘I’m well aware of the contents of your résumé, Lady Barringhall. You don’t need to recite it to me, especially not when time is of the essence.’
‘Of course not. Your Highness. Just as I won’t remind you that you’re the one who called me. That you’re the one wasting time by keeping me on the phone when I could be getting dressed.’
‘Ah.’ His voice was a cool, deep exhalation. ‘I imagined you were an expert at multi-tasking. Since I don’t recall that listed as one of your accomplishments, I’ll have to make my own judgement on that score. You now have fifteen minutes, Lady Barringhall.’
The line went dead, and Violet couldn’t stop the uncouth word that erupted from her lips. That little catharsis freed a layer of tension and propelled her to her tiny bedroom, where she rummaged through her meagre wardrobe in search of the gown she hadn’t worn since her twenty-first.
Recalling how different that birthday had been from her eighteenth, she pursed her lips. A three-hundred-plus guest list shrunk to a half-hearted twenty-five, so-called friends having fallen away like rats deserting a sinking ship, some exhibiting shocking cruelty on their way out that still hurt to this day.
Violet had endured the occasion only because her mother had insisted on marking the day, spending money they hadn’t had for a birthday party no one had wanted to attend, wearing a dress she suspected had come from a charity shop, not the haute couture line her mother had insisted it’d come from.
Whatever the genesis of the dress, Violet couldn’t fault its simple but tasteful lines. The dove-grey pleated bodice swept from a shallow V over her cleavage to wrap around her upper arms and back, leaving her shoulders and lower back bare, before the soft chiffon gently moulded her hips and fell away to her ankles.
Since she’d already showered in anticipation of slipping into her pyjamas for an early night, her only task was to slip on the dress, brush and sweep her hair into a tidy chignon, add a simple string of pearls inherited from her grandmother, shoes and make-up, and spritz on her favourite perfume.
Her doorbell went for the second time within half an hour as she was tossing her keys into her small, matching clutch. Her heart attempted to jump into her throat, until she assured herself that royalty didn’t conduct such mundane tasks as climbing four flights of dark, dank stairs to knock on the front doors of apartments in buildings within a short sprint of a housing project.
She went to the door, opened it and froze, her jaw sagging at the sight of the man framed in her doorway.
‘Do you normally throw open your door with very little regard for your safety?’ Prince Zakary Montegova asked coldly.
Violet stared, convinced that the combination of memories, exhaustion and his earlier phone call had colluded into make her hallucinate him. But, no, that steady breathing, those much too incisive grey eyes, that towering, mouthwatering body and especially that aftershave convinced her he was all too real.
‘I... What are you doing here?’
One sleek, winged eyebrow rose, sarcasm dripping from that small motion.
‘I meant you didn’t have to come up and get me yourself. You could’ve called. Or sent one of your bodyguards.’ She managed to drag her gaze from him long enough to confirm the security guards without whom he never travelled were indeed present, watchful and crowding her poorly lit hallway.
‘And missed this scintillating peek into your life? One that makes me question why you have a peephole and an adequate-looking security chain on your door but chose to use neither?’
That tight bite of irritation had thickened, even as his gaze swept over her from hair to heels, dragging awareness over every inch of skin he scrutinised, all the parts he couldn’t see.
It was that bite, that suppressed energy that intensified her awareness, dragged even more unnervingly arresting pieces of Zak Montegova into focus.
The sharp classiness of his bespoke tux highlighting his brooding sexiness.
An innate sensuality overlying a raw masculinity that’d earned him Most Eligible Royal status for more years than Violet cared to count.
‘You told me you’d be here in fifteen minutes about...fourteen minutes ago. It doesn’t take a wild leap to conclude who was knocking on my door. And, really, are we going to waste more time debating safety protocols? Because I assure you that would take up even more of my precious time.’
‘Your precious time? You signed a piece of paper, I believe, stating that every moment of your secondment was mine. Have you forgotten?’ he drawled, his gaze flickering past her shoulders and into the apartment. Sharp eyes lanced over cheap furniture, cheaper blinds and the stack of conservation books on her coffee table before returning to hers, a little less cynical and a lot more...turbulent. ‘Did I interrupt something? Were you entertaining, perhaps?’
Violet pulled the door closer, unwilling to let him see the small sanctuary she’d created for herself. While she kept her space neat and tidy and as homely as a temporary living space could be, the truth was she had very little spare funds to make it any more than functional.
To a man whose kingdom delivered precious gems by the quarry-full, amongst other priceless resources, an apartment like hers would probably make him shudder. But more than that, Violet wanted nothing to escalate his belief that her mother’s agenda to marry her off advantageously was hers as well. That she was here in New York for any reason other than to gain as much work experience as she could.
‘I think you’re a little misguided. You’re my mentor for the hours I spend at the trust and perhaps a few extra-curricular duties, but I don’t account to you for every moment of my time, and what I do with my private time is none of your business.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked.